Post Hoc Ergo Proptor Hoc
by writeronotes
Summary: Riku’s thoughts on his experiences as he and Sora sit on the beach after Xemnas’s defeat. Rated T for mild language.
1. Praeteritus

**Disclaimer:** Now this is fun. I don't own Kingdom Hearts or KH II, but here I am, pretending that I do! HA! HA! HA! Just play along.

**AN:** This is what happens when Writer reads too many KH angst-type fics and then finds an online Latin dictionary. This is purely Riku POV, with a lot of past tense monologing.

**AN II: **Sorry to all those people who read the first chapter with it's spelling mistakes... I'll be more careful from now on.

**Post Hoc Ergo Proptor Hoc**

"After it, therefore, because of it."

Chapter one: Praeteritus

How to begin what I am trying to say? It seems unwise to simply plunge into a bundle of thoughts and emotions without warning. One might say, 'Start at the beginning!' if this were a story with chronological order. Ahh… I'm being stupid. What better a place to start than the beginning? What better place to think of than Destiny Island.

Home…well… nothing really happened there. We played our games filled our days with competition and gossip. When games lost their fun, I began to train my body. Swordfights races, wrestling matches, in the end they are just a different kind of game. I wanted to win, and I was pretty immature about it I admit. I am aware that I am still a child. Sora and I stand, side by side, on a debris littered beach staring out into the empty sea. All I want to do right now is splash him with the water that surrounds us.

Side by side…I thought we would always be that way. Back to back, battling the other kinds in a game of war. Sora, me and Kairi sitting on the paupau tree, talking and laughing. Thinking up new things to do. I think… I think I was the one to suggest leaving. I felt I had done everything that there was to do. Boredom had crept upon me like a reoccurring nightmare.

My friends were, of course, ecstatic. We bustled about preparing. I remember watching Sora stumble about collecting mushrooms. I had already finished my tasks for the day and wanted nothing more than to sit in silence and watch him do his. Sora took a while to finish the chores. But that was just who he was. Anything different would have been, unnerving to say the least. We would be ready to set sail the next day. There was a whole new world out there!

If only we had seen it together.

That night we left. Not on purpose, mind you. I must have been the first to hear the storm. Not surprising, since I had been awake and rigid with excitement since ten o' clock when we had gone to 'sleep'. Sitting, staring out at our little boat calmed me a little. I was nearly asleep when I first saw the storm.

Churning, sickly looking rain clouds were hovering near the south end of the island. I could see lightning and hear thunder. When I began to count the seconds between flashes and booms, I realized that it was coming closer at an alarming rate. I rushed outside with the intent of bringing the raft to safety.

I had just begun to drag out the tarp when the storm reached land. A sudden silence fell and after that, what I now know are the shrill little voices of hundreds of heartless. From the angle I was at now, I could not see what was going on. Dropping the tarp in a heap, I then ran up to the paupau tree. There I could see everything.

The cloud, with its blues and its grays' had lowered itself at an angle until the end was touching the ground. The lowest point had turned an inky black color and was spreading paper-thin darkness across the sand. From it rose rat-like creatures with beady yellow eyes and screeching voices. Yep, that was my first impression of the heartless. I watched them, gruesome and fascinating as they were, until I looked down and saw that the darkness had climbed up the hill and was at my feet.

I jumped back when I saw it. It looked like spilled paint but it was menacing as hell, just sitting there. The fact that it was just sitting there made me wonder why it hadn't advanced any further. Well, ya'know what? That was because it had crept up behind me too. When I was standing in the center of a perfect circle is when it leaped forward so fast that I didn't even see it make the first move.

It felt _good_. It felt like the best, most exiting game I had ever played. I felt like I could fly. Tendrils of black wound their way around my legs but I didn't care. Nothing could anchor me to the ground now. I saw Sora run towards me, and I reached for him. I wanted him to fly with me. Oddly enough, he seemed to have a hard time struggling through the darkness. I saw him stretch out his arm, touch the tip of my fingertip, stumble, and then nothing but the black that had covered my eyes for what felt like the longest time.

Kairi was laying before me, as lifelike as a corpse.

"She has lost her heart," whispered the tall woman with the green skin and the tattered cloak, "But I can help you get it back…"


	2. Progredior

**Disclaimer: **If I owned kingdom hearts Axel wouldn't have died.

**AN:** Well, I was just going to do the beginning of KH and the end of KHII, but some reviews changed my mind. Now, I'm doing the entire game Riku POV! This is going to be fun. And when I say fun, I mean frustrating and annoying.

And I'm sorry that the update took so long. Almost a month! This is the fault of procrastination, camping, my birthday, and the beginning of school. I'm fourteen now.

**AN:** I just played through the beginning of the game again and found out that I missed some lines. Whoops! Hehe… from here forth they should be accurate (with minor changes)

**Post Hoc Ergo Proptor Hoc**

'After it, therefore, because of it'

Chapter two: Progredior

The place that the darkness had taken me was called hollow bastion. The name suited it. It was an empty place with cryptic messages scribbled hastily on the walls. I hadn't really liked it there; the lights didn't seem to be working properly.

As I said, the bastion seemed to be almost completely devoid of life. I had my pick of any of the empty rooms to stay in, except two. Naturally, these two rooms occupied most of my attention after the complete exploration of the rest of the bastion. It would have been a lot funner if Sora had been with me, or if Kairi wasn't laying in the most well-lit room I could find, still and silent. All alone, it was kind of lonely.

The fist was hidden away underground. One of those rooms that you could only get to through a complex series of twists and turns, going up one staircase only to go down another that was twice the length. I had found the path by following one of the people who showed up on a regular basis to speak with Maleficent about things unknown. Oh yes, Maleficent was the tall woman with the tattered cloak. He called himself 'Captain Hook', but I think he gave himself that name after losing his hand.

Anyway, I followed him down through the lift stop. Up one staircase, only to go down another that was twice the length. There were more twists and turns that I really don't feel like mentioning, and in the end he entered a plain, nondescript room that was a floor above the dungeon and a little to the left. All the doors surrounding it were open, but empty. Figures, the only interesting one was the only one locked. Having nothing better to do, I sat near the crack at the bottom of the door and listened in…

"That little brat took down that heartless? Who would have thought ha was up to it?" I knew that voice. He was probably the oddest that I had seen so far, with a hot, blue, flame where his head should have been. I lay on my stomach and peeked under to see a few pairs of shoes, something that looked like a burlap sack, and a purple mass that could have easily imitated tentacles placed about a stone table. One of the shoes shifted and someone began to speak.

"Such is the power of the keyblade. The boys strength is not his own."

"Why don't we turn him into a heartless? That'll settle things quick enough!" I recognized neither of these voices. It seems that more people were entering and leaving the castle then I first thought. It sort of bugged me that blue-flame-hair, Hook, maleficent and I were not the only ones here. Also, Maleficent and co. tend to leave for days at a time, so there might be more timed than I had thought when I wasn't alone in here.

"And the brats friend are none other than the kings lackeys! Swoggle me eyes, they're all bilge rats by the look of them.

"Your no prize yourself!"

"Shut up!" ahh finally. Hook had been the first speaker. I was amazed that he had managed to stay quite that long. Again, however, there was someone that I hadn't recognized. I didn't get time to assess the voice because Maleficent began to speak.

"Enough. He has been chosen by the keyblade. Will it be he who conquers darkness? Or will the darkness swallow him? Either way, he could be useful." That was the second time that someone had mentioned 'keyblade'. I was in the middle of pondering what that was when Maleficent opened the door to find me sitting there. I tried going back there once, but all signs that there had been anyone there were stripped. No one but me has been there since.

Maleficent doesn't talk to me. When I first came to the Bastion, She told me that Sora had stolen Kairi's heart. I didn't believe her. She then told me that plans needed to be finalized and executed, and that I should have patience. She has said nothing to me since, even when she caught be eavesdropping. Normally I wouldn't wait around for someone to tell me what to do, but I have been outside the Bastion. There is nothing but waterfall for miles around, and I would be screwed if I tried to leave now. At the very leased I need a ride out of there.

But I digress; I have yet to tell you of the second door. Well, I can't even call it a door for lack of hinges and handles. I don't really have a story for this one. I found it when I was wandering around looking for a back entrance to the castle. If you were to go through the hall in the back of the chapel into the lift stop and go to the right, you would find what looks like two large blocks in the arch of a door. (1) Engraved on these was the symbol that was strewn about the castle, and heart crossed with thorns. I tried to push it, pull it, and kick it (out of frustration) but I have yet to find a way in. It seems unlikely that it would just be a dead end. If it was, then why did it need to be sealed off so well? Therefore, there must be something important behind it. I made it my objective while I was here to find out.

Remember when I said that Maleficent never talked to me? Well, after the first three weeks she began to. The fact that she was acknowledging my existence really astonished me at the time. When that happened, the first thing she told me was that they had found Sora, but she didn't think I would want to see him anymore.

o:O:o

(1) No you won't. That was made up purely for this story.


End file.
